XD Cam

Hi All,
We're evaluating the XD cams soon, and i was wondering if anyone has used this successfully with the 844x.ie capture deck drivers etc.
Seems like a good system, if we can integrate it with our workflow. Don't want to take a trip to Avidland just yet........

I use the XDCAM quite often with my 844. It sees it as a DSR 85 and it seems to work just like a normal deck.
Mastering is to a specific time-code can be tricky as a blank disc does not REW or FF.
Before mastering I record a black clip with time-code starting at 58:30:00 and let it go until just beyond the 1:00:00 mark. That way the deck will cue seeing time code and begin mastering at 59:00:00.
Just remember that you can't insert record on a disc either so there is no "fixing the master."

BTW - I just got an Avid Express Pro HD on a laptop and it imports XDCAM files nicely.
On a side note the Avid works very well with FS-4 PRO Firestore. The FS-4 Pro records Avid OMF files from your camera via firewire right to a mountable hard drive... eliminating digitizing, importing and coffee breaks altogether. They just pop into the bin and start editing. Great for quick turnaround projects.

Are you telling me that you can't do insert editing on XDCAM? Is that a limitation of the blue ray disks format? If so then that would apply to XDCAM HD. Any more info on the limitations of this format would be appreciated.

I have PDW 1500 half rack units. No controls on the deck. It will insert from the 844x but it can be tricky because the 844 does not have the VLAN support for the deck. I use the DSR 1500 setting. It took a while of playing with it to trick it to record the way I wanted to with the 844.

I've only used to ingest, works fine (i master to digibeta)
However, i cannot understand why the "use deck's internal cue" is not in a protocol.
It's so stupid to see a disc based deck winding at slow speed to its starting point for preroll...